Astana Declaration Anniversary 2022
An important International Conference on Primary Health Care was held in, back then, Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, in 1978, bringing together health experts and world leaders. The Alma-Ata Declaration was adopted at this conference, which urged signatories to incorporate the concept of primary health care in their health systems to protect and promote "health of all".
Forty years later, the Global Conference on Primary Health Care in Astana, Kazakhstan, in October 2018, endorsed a new declaration reiterating the critical role of primary health care worldwide. The declaration aimed to refocus efforts on primary health care to ensure the highest possible attainable standard of health for everyone, everywhere. WONCA was also present at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care in Astana as one of the primary stakeholders.
On the occasion of the 4th Anniversary of the Astana Declaration, the WONCA Young Doctors’ Movements (YDM), in collaboration with the Junior Doctors’ Network (JDN) of the World Medical Association- WMA and young doctors of African Forum for Primary Health Care (AfroPHC) to launch a social media campaign to raise awareness on this international declaration and increase the young doctors commitment to strengthen primary health care through their action. Acknowledging its importance, WONCA extended the social media campaign to all its members by introducing a commemorative ‘Astana Anniversary profile picture frame’ for social media users.
The social media campaign by the WONCA YDM and all collaborating organisations ran from the 20th until the 26th of October when the original Astana Declaration was launched. The WONCA YDM promoted the campaign with three publications per day on Facebook for one week, with young doctors from all seven WONCA regional YDMs reflecting on progress and challenges in different countries, sharing the perspectives of WONCA YDM and showing their strong determination to achieve universal health coverage through fostering primary care.
WONCA's official Facebook page, official Twitter handle and official LinkedIn account contributed to the campaign, furthering its reach. Similarly, WMA JDN and AfroPHC joined the campaign via their social media platforms. All the organisations involved used the hashtags #Astana4PHC #youngdoctors4Astana to promote the campaign.
The Astana Declaration Anniversary campaign represents a successful effort, with extended reach and post engagements in social media platforms related to WONCA, WMA JDN and AfroPHC, reflecting the young doctors’ willingness to commit to primary health care towards a promising future.
Sankha Randenikumara
Young Doctors’ Representative of WONCA